Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Troubled Teen Industry => Topic started by: emaree on May 05, 2006, 01:06:00 AM
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I have been "out" coming on two years (I attended Spring Creek Lodge), and I am looking for a therapist or psychologist to help me through some of my problems. Due to the fact that so many of them stem from the program, I would really like to see someone who knows what they're talking about or even specializes in cases like this. I have seen quite a few therapists over the years and know that they are not all made equal, and the effectiveness of the therapy can vary greatly depending on the talent of the doctor.
Does anyone have any suggestions/resources on how to find good treatment? Is there a certain field of psychology that would cover my issues? I really don't know how to label my problems, but I would say the major issues are trust, self-esteem, abandonment, guilt, and male acceptance. Not to mention the nightmares and pain I hold onto because of the program. Yeah I know sort of vague but I'm no doctor. :smile:
Has anyone else been through therapy after going to a program? Did it help at all?
So if anybody out there knows how to help me, I would really appreciate some advice.
Thanks.
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Emaree.........where do you live?
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EMDR is reported to be a very effective 'therapy' for PTSD, provided the therapist is good. Lots to be found on the web, google the term.
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Make an appointment with the nearest mental health clinic. The purpose for going there is to describe your problems so you can get competent referals. You are using the mental health clinic to pre qualify your referal list. Make appointments with the referal list, and get a feel for whom you like and can bond with. You may want women, you may want men, or gender may not matter. Studies show that the greatest predictor of success is not the modality of treatment, but the bond and regard between therapist and client. See at least four people before making a decision. Wishing you the very best.
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See several therapists before you pick one--you're basically interviewing them for the job. Ask how much experience each has treating PTSD. Ask if their therapy style is supportive or confrontational--obviously, you want someone who's 100% supportive.
I don't think the treatment for civilian PTSD is necessarily the same as for military. In the military, lately, they've found that the best way to treat combat fatigue (incipient PTSD) is on the spot--you give the soldier a short break with counseling from his CO or trusted NCOs and send him back in. If you make a big deal of downchecking him and sending him back and all that, you make it worse.
That's the *early* treatment on the spot. It seems to be like preventing a stain from setting. The rough compassion from comrades in arms seems to do more positive for the soldiers than anything else. The other issue is that PTSD in combat units is contagious---one guy goes down with it and it can run through the entire unit, one after another. I know a guy whose entire unit got downchecked with it in Afghanistan---counseling, meds, the whole nine yards. He's still...jumpy isn't the best word, but it's a bit hard to describe.
Our family is friends with another family where the teen daughter has complex PTSD from some pretty horrific child abuse (not the mom and stepdad---a real life wicked stepmom who is, of course, out of the picture now).
Getting her out of the situation has helped, and compassion is helping a lot, but it's slow going. It's a lot like the years when I was recovering from rape and an abusive relationship, except I hid it more and suffered in silence.
What helped me stop shoving what happened to the back of my mind thinking it would get better that way (it doesn't) and actually recover was to talk to other people who had been through the same thing.
The hardest thing to recover from is feelings where you cooperated with or bonded with the person or people doing bad things to you, and sorting out where they were being monsters from where they weren't entirely monsters, and sorting out how to feel about or respond to the people who should have protected you and helped you but didn't.
You feel like you're the only one who feels those things, and some of those feelings make you feel like some of it (or all of it) was on some level your fault. It's hard to get through all that to understanding in your gut that *nobody* deserves to be treated like that, no matter *what* they did or didn't do.
Talking to other rape survivors helped more than any ten therapists could have.
I'm not saying you don't need a therapist or shouldn't get one if that's what you think would be most helpful next. You should definitely trust your instincts. Re-learning to trust your instincts is hard but important.
Not everything other rape victims experienced was relevant to me, but talking to them and reading their comments on talk.rape was very hard for me---but ultimately I don't think I could have healed without it.
In many ways, Fornits serves the same function. Reading the experiences of other survivors is like lancing a festering boil. Not everything is relevant to you, but being able to pick and choose for yourself what *is* relevant, in a context where the people who went through similar stuff genuingely won't judge you, lets the dark poison drain out of your emotional wounds so you can heal.
We had trolls in talk.rape who were unsympathetic bastards just like the Program Pushers are here. In their own way, the trolls in talk.rape on Usenet helped me recover, too. They were so obviously idiots that they allowed me to exorcise my fears of being judged by others. It was like looking in the closet once I was old enough to realize the thing that looked like a monster in the dark was just the sleeve of a dress or something.
The judgmental people weren't twelve feet tall and omniscient. They were just pathetic, ignorant people who were damaged and warped in their own ways.
Seeing the Program Parents and the Program Owners and Staffers and Ed Cons who come on here is priceless. Feet of clay, the emperor with no clothes, however you want to put it. They're truly pathetic idiots, and seeing them for what they are helps lay the ghosts of them.
In the Program, you couldn't help but see them as powerful people who had some sort of right to sit in judgment on you---or so the little voice that drank the kool-aid tells you. Here, you can see them as they really are---terribly dysfunctional people, many of whom probably shouldn't be trusted with the care of a goldfish, much less a kid.
Get a therapist, by all means.
But stay here, too. This is one of the best places you could be to get healing.
Julie
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I really appreciate everybody's input, and after I get some information from my insurance company, I should be able to make some decisions financially and start looking for someone. I may have to pay out of pocket because we have an HMO, but I have access to university doctors here so that might widen the field a little.
I am a little skeptical about EMDR, just because there seem to be conflicting views about it's effectiveness and repuation on the web. I will definately look further into it but I'm very resistent to trying something radical, just because I feel like I don't need any more confusion psychologically.
I also appreciate the advice about seeing several therapists before choosing one - I had never really thought about that before but it makes sense. So much of my therapy didn't work just because I didn't feel like the doctor understood me or knew how to help me. Or maybe I just wasn't comfortable enough to talk about everything.
Posting/reading on here and myspace definately helps me, but at the same time I get frustrated with the lack of awareness elsewhere, especially when it comes to people in my life. Explaining your problems to other people becomes much harder once it involves a behavior modification program. It basically caused a breakup with my boyfriend of a year. Not to mention my parents won't really listen to any bad things I have to say about WWASP. Truly listen anyway. They'll say they understand and that they're sorry, but the minute I start showing them stuff from Isac they stop hearing me. My mom actually walked out of the room when I was reading a breakdown of the behavior modification process that they use.
Anyway thanks for all of your help Three Springs, CCM, Badpuppy and Julie. I think it's great that there is a support system on here too.
Emily
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curious to read that breakdown you just mentioned Emaree. It might help me improve my own understanding of the topic.
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One idea is to see if your mother will participate in a joint session with your future therapist. These sessions tend to be very hard on both parties but they help to facilitate honest communication and reconciliation.
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Emily -
Im sorry your parents are like that. Its pretty sad when adults act less mature than the kids they expect so much of. Theyre probably feeling guilty and unable to handle it... even though humiliation was your reality. Hopefully theyll grow up and come to terms with it themselves, for your sake.
Thankfully I haven't ever been in or worked in a program, and it really sucks having to see this from a distance. At least Ive been able to do what I can, but ultimately its the people like you who have to take the final steps and approach the people who signed the checks, or actually commited the acts of abuse to press charges. And that takes all the bravery in the world, especially AFTER having people confront you and attack you and humiliate you for so long in those programs, while the people who themselves supported it cant hold themselves accountable.
I hope Fornits is helpful for you, but you'll have to mind the trolls and the struggling parents that stop by every now and then :roll:
Anywho, thanks for coming to fornits. The more the merrier :tup:
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http://www.wellspringretreat.org/ (http://www.wellspringretreat.org/)
These folks specialize in treating victims of cultic experiences which result in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
I have no first hand knowledge, but this might be something to research and consider.
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Ever consider treatment without being shipped off somewhere? :???:
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Niles, if one is going b/c one wants to, it is not being shipped off.
If you'll take the time to read the web site, I think you'll see it is worth considering, for any one coming out of an abusive, cult-like program.
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Emily,
I think it's obvious that your parents feel a lot of guilt over sending you to a WWASPS program.
If you can't get your parents to sit down and talk with you, I would write them a letter. I would also print out the information that you are reading on ISAC and take a highlighter pen, and highlight the important parts for you parents to see.
What your parents need to understand from you, is that you are done trying to make them feel bad for what they did, but basically you need their help in your healing process. For that to happen, they need to have some kind of understanding of what you went through on a daily basis while being locked away. So they can have a better understanding of where you are mentally.
I would be honest, and upfront with them. Tell them it's not going to be easy, that it will take some hard work on both your parts, but you want them in your life, and to share many happy years together. Tell them how much it would mean to you if they were to go to therapy with you.
Sometimes the kids have to be the leaders in this. It's funny....you'd think since your parents have many more years of life experience then you, that they would be able to handle this? It's not the case. A lot of times the older people get, the more stuck in their ways they become, and the narrower their vision gets. Being young allows you to be more open minded about things, because you are not tainted by life experiences.
I have a feeling you, and your family are going to be just fine. Do not give up on finding the right therapist. That is one of the most important things you can do for yourself, and you family.
The best of luck to you all!
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On 2006-05-08 06:57:00, BuzzKill wrote:
"Niles, if one is going b/c one wants to, it is not being shipped off.
If you'll take the time to read the web site, I think you'll see it is worth considering, for any one coming out of an abusive, cult-like program.
"
I said nothing of abuse or cults! You assumed a bit too much there, Buzzkill.
Im just beside myself that people have such a propensity to ship themselves or others off for therapy. Doesn't anyone realize that a lot of people dont want to feel abandoned or get uprooted and moved far away to some strange, new place, and a lot of therapy might have to do with feeling secure right where you are, not 'changing' this and that, and maybe youd like to be around friends and family and familiarity, instead of whatever boarding some camp has.
Id rather have my own room and 4 familiar walls than some bunkbed, but thats just me.
EDIT: The thing is, for someone whose been sent off to godknowswhere ALREADY, why do it again? I can understand for logistic reasons that if its this only one place that really offers that sort of therapy it makes more sense to bring people TO them, and it might be helpful for people who were abused in the home to go somewhere else, but people who were sent off to be abused and brainwashed for months or years, why do the same to them all over again?[ This Message was edited by: Nihilanthic on 2006-05-08 14:26 ]
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Niles writes:
I said nothing of abuse or cults! You assumed a bit too much there, Buzzkill.///
I didn't say you had, Niles. I am saying that Well spring is designed to help those coming out of such groups - and therefore - emaree might find it an option worth considering.
It seems to me its better to spend a couple or three weeks in a focused therapy setting, away from home, than to spend years with a less focused and less helpful therapist close to home.
I have no idea what this kid might want to do - but they are asking about options - and this is one option worth looking at. Thats all.
Did you realize it is designed as a two week corse? Its not at all comparible to leaving home and family. It is more like a PTSD recovery retreat. And now that they will charge on a sliding scale, it might be affordable for many more people.
Emaree writes:
/// They'll say they understand and that they're sorry, but the minute I start showing them stuff from Isac they stop hearing me. My mom actually walked out of the room when I was reading a breakdown of the behavior modification process that they use.///
I've noticed this too. People get a glazed expression and tune out. I have stopped talking in mid sentence, and its gone unnoticed.
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Don't turn this thread into another arena for bitchfests and agenda pushing please.
It's it's not gonna help Emaree deal with her problems it can be taken to another thread.
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I was just saying someone who was sent off to SCL probably doesnt want to ge sent off again.